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COSMOS, in this edition of Cosmographer Corner, highlights the work of former University of Arkansas at Little Rock graduate and Cosmographer Dr. Therese Williams. We are extremely proud of Dr. Williams’s accomplishments! 

Dr. Williams—who is now an associate professor and the chair of information systems and operations management (ISOM) for the College of Business at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO)—started her graduate education at UA Little Rock in 2014, studying for a PhD in computer science. Dr. Williams received her PhD in computer & information sciences in 2017. We interviewed Dr. Williams on where her career is now and what her work at COSMOS entailed, with her responses below.

How did COSMOS fit into your university/secondary education career? How did you come across COSMOS, and what were you studying when you joined COSMOS?

I was in COSMOS very early. In fact, I was in it before it was even called COSMOS. 

So I started my doctorate in 2012. The main reason that I wanted to get a doctorate was because I wanted to teach; that was my goal. I have always enjoyed learning, which led me to pursue a doctorate in Information Quality. Around that time, I was invited to a research meeting led by Dr. Agarwal. There were only four or five people in attendance, but I found the experience fascinating and kept going. Over time, I decided my ultimate goal was to teach. At that point, UA Little Rock was one of only a few universities offering a program in Information Quality, and I realized that universities typically do not hire their own graduates as professors, at least not immediately. This prompted me to switch my major to Information Science. I then asked Dr. Agarwal to be my dissertation advisor, and as the research group expanded, we decided to name it COSMOS. And, well, the rest is history.

Alongside my doctorate, I earned a graduate certificate in statistics, which came about unexpectedly. While working on a research paper, I struggled with statistical concepts I hadn’t studied in years, so I decided to take a class. Realizing I only needed four classes for the certificate, I completed it, which I believe played a significant role in landing my job. 

How would you describe the “research pipeline” that you worked on while at COSMOS? In other words, what was the specific area in which you researched?

My dissertation and research centered on privacy. I initially struggled to choose a dissertation topic, especially before becoming more involved with Dr. Agarwal’s group. Having spent years in industry, primarily working with databases and security, I knew I didn’t want to focus on security for my dissertation. My early work with Dr. Agarwal involved bibliometric research on social networking, where I analyzed a decade of conference papers and their citations to identify clusters of influence. This was fascinating and ultimately led me to privacy research. 

In a research methodologies class taught by Dr. Wigand, I developed a short paper on privacy that evolved into a conference paper and eventually my dissertation. My approach framed privacy not as a technical or security issue but as a policy challenge concerning how companies and individuals handle information. Using Alan Westin’s privacy framework, which categorizes individuals into three groups based on their attitudes toward sharing information, I conducted multiple surveys to measure how education affected privacy awareness. 

Surprisingly, more participants moved toward less privacy-conscious attitudes rather than becoming more cautious. While I’ve always intended to expand on this data, teaching responsibilities have shifted my focus toward the scholarship of teaching. My recent research has explored student perceptions during COVID, leading to three published papers. 

Since leaving COSMOS, what roles/positions/jobs have you had? What is your current work?

I was fortunate to secure my current position just a few months after graduating in May, starting in August. I’ve now been in this role for seven years, and while it’s a great fit, I do miss Arkansas. I joined UCO as an assistant professor on the tenure track, transitioning from an industry-focused background to a teaching-intensive role at a university where teaching carries greater emphasis than at research institutions like UALR or the University of Arkansas. UCO’s teaching load is four classes per semester, which can make balancing other responsibilities challenging. 

Initially, I was hired to support the master’s program in business analytics and began teaching a graduate database class alongside an undergraduate database course and an introductory business analytics course for undergraduates. The database classes, taught using SQL Server, covered standard topics, while the undergraduate business analytics course primarily focused on Excel for summary statistics, linear regression, and other basic concepts. The program emphasizes applied analytics over programming, teaching tools and methods from a business perspective. Though we include one Python class, the focus is less on coding and more on practical applications, making my degree instrumental in supporting this approach.

Before COVID, the undergraduate business analytics course required significant reworking. Students disliked the industry-focused textbook, and grading spreadsheets submitted by over 100 students weekly was unsustainable. I spearheaded a committee to select a new textbook with integrated online tools for automatic grading and revamped the course, recording extensive instructional videos. Although the videos initially needed improvement, this redesign made the course more manageable and enhanced student performance and satisfaction. When COVID forced all classes online, the updated course proved successful and earned praise for its smooth transition.

Over time, as new faculty joined, I shifted from teaching the undergraduate database course to teaching two graduate classes: a more advanced version of the undergraduate analytics course and another in the business analytics program. I regularly update course materials to stay current, including recent textbook changes for both undergraduate and graduate courses. In Fall 2022, I became a tenured professor, and in Fall 2023, I transitioned to department chair. This role reduced my teaching load to two courses per semester, though faculty shortages have occasionally required me to teach an extra class. Despite these challenges, I continue to enjoy teaching database and analytics courses, constantly refining them to improve student engagement and learning outcomes.

What positions did COSMOS and your classes at UA Little Rock best prepare you for?

I had mentioned earlier the two online classes that significantly influenced my understanding of online teaching: statistics and grant writing. These courses provided a stark contrast—one serving as a great example and the other as a poor one—of what effective online teaching should look like. I often reflect on those experiences when designing my own online classes. Beyond that, I enjoyed all my courses during my studies. For example, Dr. Xiao Wei Zhu’s classes in information science were engaging. His database course evolved into something akin to topic modeling, while another of his classes shifted focus as well, making them interesting. Additionally, the Friday afternoon doctoral seminars were a highlight. These research meetings brought in speakers from various fields, exposing students to a wide range of topics and ideas outside their own areas of study, which I found both inspiring and enriching.

If you had to describe the most momentous event at COSMOS, what would it be?

When I think back to pivotal moments in my academic journey, deciding on my dissertation topic stands out as a peak. That moment likely emerged from the research methodologies class, which sparked my interest in privacy as a concept distinct from security. I enjoyed the conferences I attended during this time as well. My first conference was AMCIS in Savannah, Georgia, followed by SoUPS, the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security, where I conducted a bibliometric study. SoUPS, while a strong conference in its field, felt relatively small and not particularly welcoming. After graduating, I attended another AMCIS conference in Boston shortly after starting at UCO. Additionally, I co-chaired a conference on information quality at UA Little Rock with the International Association of Data Quality (IADQ). While it was a fun experience, organizing the event in the student center with a fellow student involved a great deal of work. These events collectively contributed to my growth as a scholar and my engagement with the academic community.

What advice would you have for current Cosmographers?

For those currently in the COSMOS program, my first piece of advice is to have fun and truly enjoy what you’re doing. If you don’t find joy in it, it might be time to reconsider your path. Take full advantage of the resources around you—there are professors and more experienced students with a wealth of knowledge who are willing to share it. Communication is equally vital. Get involved, ask questions, and engage in discussions. It’s okay to admit when you don’t understand something or even when you disagree—that’s how you learn. As my mother once said, I started asking questions at two years old and never stopped, and that curiosity has been invaluable. The world is constantly evolving, and while you may know everything today, you won’t tomorrow. Embrace learning as a continuous journey, and remember that curiosity and communication are key to growth and understanding.

In this month’s research spotlight, we highlight recent research from COSMOS that focuses on using YouTube videos to discover meaningful trends—specifically, the studies titled,
 

• “Unveiling Bias in YouTube Shorts: Analyzing Thumbnail Recommendations and Topic Dynamics,” and
• “Investigating YouTube Narratives and User Resonance in the South China Sea Dispute.”
  

Each studied different trends in YouTube data, such as popular narratives or algorithmic recommendation bias. These studies were published and presented recently at this year’s annual International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS 2024), which took place from 18 to 20 September in Pittsburgh, PA.

“Unveiling Bias in YouTube Shorts: Analyzing Thumbnail Recommendations and Topic Dynamics” investigates bias in YouTube Shorts’ recommendation algorithms by analyzing thumbnail recommendations using advanced topic modeling techniques. Focusing on the South China Sea Dispute as a case study, the researchers collected over 100,000 videos and used generative AI and BERTopic to track topic shifts across recommendation depths. Their study revealed a significant algorithmic bias where initial serious or geopolitical topics quickly drifted towards more entertaining, high-engagement content. As recommendation cycles progressed, substantial topics were replaced by lifestyle, entertainment, and miscellaneous videos. This bias potentially marginalizes important subjects by prioritizing popular, less serious content and underscores the need for more transparent and equitable recommendation practices.

“Investigating YouTube Narratives and User Resonance in the South China Sea Dispute” analyzes YouTube narratives about the 2022 South China Sea Dispute using advanced AI techniques. The researchers examined 4,225 videos, extracting insights on sentiment, emotions, morality, and toxicity. Key findings included a prevailing negative sentiment, particularly around the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and high levels of fear in the narratives. The research highlighted narratives about NATO’s support for Ukraine, China and Philippines’ diplomatic interactions, and emerging geopolitical tensions. Notable trends included surges in harm-related narratives, toxic content featuring political figures, and emotional variations between video content and user comments. This study provides a nuanced understanding of the online discourse surrounding complex international disputes.

Professor Nitin Agarwal has been appointed to a key working group by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. This group will explore the safe and effective integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into Arkansas state government operations. Dr. Agarwal brings extensive experience to this initiative and has collaborated with organizations such as the U.S. Department of Defense and NATO. His work has advanced understanding in areas like misinformation, social computing, and algorithmic accountability.

The task force, a subcommittee of the Data and Transparency Panel chaired by Arkansas Chief Data Officer Robert McGough, will meet over the next year to create ethical guidelines, policies, and best practices for AI use in state government. This includes evaluating pilot projects in areas such as unemployment fraud detection and recidivism reduction.

Governor Sanders emphasized the transformative potential of AI for improving government efficiency while cautioning against its misuse. “AI can play a role in improving service to Arkansans while keeping costs low. At the same time, we must prevent misuse to protect Arkansans,” she stated.

Agarwal echoed these sentiments, highlighting the importance of balancing innovation with ethical considerations. “AI systems often rely on vast amounts of personal data, raising concerns about privacy, fairness, and public trust,” he said. His recommendations will focus on embedding principles of transparency, accountability, and equity into AI governance.

The initiative underscores Arkansas’s commitment to becoming a leader in responsible AI adoption, aligning technological advancements with societal values. Agarwal’s contributions will help shape AI policies that ensure safety, innovation, and public confidence, further positioning Arkansas as a model for responsible AI integration.

Click here to read more about Dr. Agarwal’s role, Arkansas’s vision for AI, and how the state is preparing for the future of this transformative technology.

Dr. Nitin Agarwal along with colleagues Prof. Leonidas Sakalauskas (Vilnius University, Lithuania), and Prof. Ualsher Tukeyev (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan) edited a volume on Modeling and Simulation of Social-Behavioral Phenomena in Creative Societies, comprising papers from the proceedings of the 3rd international conference MSBC 2024, which was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in September 2024. The volume consists of 16 full papers from the conference’s 42 submissions.

The MSBC 2024 centers on using computational models to address complex issues within social sciences and the humanities. It aims to facilitate discussions among researchers and practitioners about integrating computer science with these fields to enhance the modeling and simulation of socio-economic and societal problems. With its interdisciplinary scope, the event draws participation from multiple disciplines, such as organizational science, sociology, communicative action theory, media research, operations research, management science, agent-based simulation, computational intelligence, applied mathematics, and econophysics. This platform seeks to strengthen visibility and understanding of diverse topics by bridging theoretical and applied research areas.

In the published book, common themes explored are the use of new computer science technology to study societal problems. “The growing social sustainability and societal cohesion challenges are becoming increasingly acknowledged worldwide,” the editors write. “However, there is a conceptual and analytical gap in understanding the driving forces behind them. Thorough multidisciplinary research efforts are in demand for making valuable contributions, starting from concepts and models and ending with recommendation and decision-support systems capable of contributing to effective global and European-wide social and cultural policy formation agendas.” Get your copy today!

The 16th Annual International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM) leads data mining interdisciplinary research. As the name implies, the conference focuses on Social Network Analysis and Mining (SNAM), which has gained importance in various fields such as academia, business, politics, and homeland security and has its roots in social and business communities. This research—driven largely by the analysis of online platforms, email records, phone logs, and instant messaging systems—commonly uses graph theory and machine learning. It mirrors the broader trend of society evolving into networks where individuals rely more heavily on their connections.

ASONAM 2024 aimed to offer a cross-disciplinary platform for researchers and practitioners in different areas of SNAM to collaborate and share ideas. The event focused on key issues, emphasizing emerging trends and the demands of the industry. The conference invited both theoretical and experimental research on social network analysis and mining, with a focus on real-world applications.

From September 2 to 5, 2024, the 16th ASONAM conference was held at the University of Calabria in Calabria, Italy. This year COSMOS had 7 papers that were accepted and published in the proceedings of the conference by Springer! Several cosmographers visited the conference to present their research. The following is a list of papers from cosmographers that were published in the conference:

• Are Narratives Contagious? Modeling Narrative Diffusion Using Epidemiological Theories
• Beyond the Click: How YouTube Thumbnails Shape User Interaction and Algorithmic Recommendations
• Detecting and Measuring Anomalous Behaviors on YouTube
• Mitigating the Spread of COVID-19 Misinformation Using Agent-Based Modeling and Delays in Information Diffusion
• Multi-agent Analytics-Driven Content Discovery: A Narrative Contagion Approach
• Navigating the Anomalies: A Comprehensive Analysis of YouTube Channel Behavior
• Utilizing Fractional Order Epidemiological Model to Understand High and Moderate Toxicity Spread on Social Media Platforms 
  

In this first article of a two-part series, we summarize three of these papers: 

• Navigating the Anomalies: A Comprehensive Analysis of YouTube Channel Behavior
• Detecting and Measuring Anomalous Behaviors on YouTube
• Beyond the Click: How YouTube Thumbnails Shape User Interaction and Algorithmic Recommendations
  

The former two studies focus on anomalous interaction trends on YouTube that can indicate artificially boosted or misleading content, and all three focus on interaction from YouTube users with trends in videos.

“Navigating the Anomalies: A Comprehensive Analysis of YouTube Channel Behavior” used engagement metrics and commenter behavior to identify anomalous YouTube channels through Cosine Similarity and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Cosine Similarity calculated the resemblance between active and suspended channels, while PCA identified key features explaining dataset variance. Findings revealed that anomalies vary across metrics, requiring a multi-dimensional approach.

“Detecting and Measuring Anomalous Behaviors on YouTube” extended this by adding a qualitative analysis of anomalous channels. It highlighted trends in contentious content and distinct network properties, with key indicators including clustering coefficient, comment volume, and unique commenter count.

“Beyond the Click” analyzed how YouTube thumbnails influence user interaction and algorithmic recommendations. Attributes like brightness, colorfulness, and quality showed minimal impact on engagement for sensitive topics. Instead, engagement was driven by content relevance, with YouTube’s algorithm favoring visually engaging thumbnails, which can marginalize minority viewpoints and promote content homogenization.

From September 18 to 20, 2024, the 17th annual International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral Cultural Modeling & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS) was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, co-chaired by Dr. Agarwal. 

With the help of generous travel funding from the US Army Research Office, several researchers from around the world were able to attend the conference to present their research and learn from colleagues. Dr. Agarwal, the PI of the grant, states this as “an incredible honor to serve the scientific community by helping researchers attend the conference, and one of the most rewarding experiences is seeing how students who were once funded by the travel awards are now faculty, bringing their own students to the conference.”  

Cosmographers presented research from a range of topics such as online toxicity, social movements, flash mobs, YouTube recommendation bias, and YouTube narratives.

Each year, SBP-BRiMS leads academic research that combines interdisciplinary methods from both social computing, cultural behavioral modeling and simulation. This historic conference features highly selective research focusing on complex social/cultural behaviors, patterns, and their outcomes, and covers various levels of analysis that span fields such as engineering, computational sciences, social sciences, and health sciences. This conference was born by the joining of what were originally two conferences, Social Computing, Behavioral Cultural Modeling & Prediction (SBP) and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (BRiMS). SBP was co-founded by Dr. Huan Liu (Arizona State University) and Dr. Agarwal in 2008. Since their synthesis, this conference has grown from a small computer science subfield conference to a major conference of social computing bringing multiple disciplines and experts from around the world. It has evolved into a significant event where academics, researchers, and industry professionals from fields such as social sciences, behavioral modeling, and data science come together to share their work in areas like public health, cybersecurity, and national defense. 

Dr. Agarwal said, “We celebrate our students’ success at the conference, the financial support that allowed them to attend, and express our deepest gratitude to the government funding from organizations like the US Army Research Office. Looking forward to next year’s conference, I encourage any student interested in attending SBP-BRIMS to apply for travel scholarships, so that they can join this thrilling academic pursuit.”

COSMOS, in this edition of Cosmographer Corner, highlights the work of former University of Arkansas at Little Rock graduate and Cosmographer Dr. Zachary Stine. We are extremely proud of Dr. Stine’s accomplishments! 

Dr. Stine—who is now an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA)—started his graduate education at UA Little Rock in 2012, studying computer science as a post-baccalaureate. Dr. Stine started his PhD under Dr. Agarwal’s supervision and joined COSMOS as a graduate research assistant in 2016. He received his PhD in computer & information sciences in 2021, and worked as a postdoc at COSMOS. We interviewed Dr. Stine on where his career is now and what his work at COSMOS entailed, with his responses below.

How did COSMOS fit into your university/secondary education career? How did you come across COSMOS, and what were you studying when you joined COSMOS?

I was what’s called a post-bac student: I had finished my bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field, which was religious studies (the secular study of human religion). I knew I wanted to do a master’s program, particularly computer science. I ended up taking around 42 hours of coursework while I was working for a health insurance company. They were paying for me to take undergraduate classes. And so I took all of the core computer science curriculum, and decided OK, I want to do the master’s program. That’s when I fell in with Dr. Agarwal, when I was making that transition to the graduate program. When first studying computer science, I was interested in network science and social networks, and had been introduced to Dr. Agarwal through those classes. I was a student just trying to figure out which master’s program I wanted to do. After realizing that Dr. Agarwal was looking at the sorts of questions that I was interested in, I jumped at the chance to work with him, eventually deciding to just go ahead and do a PhD.

At first I wasn’t doing full-time classes, and wasn’t a full-time research assistant at that point. But eventually I decided to go ahead and take the plunge, leaving behind my job to become a research assistant with Dr. Agarwal.

But there was no COSMOS when I joined—it was simply Dr. Agarwal’s lab, at that point. I think it was a year into my work with Dr. Agarwal that COSMOS came to be—I remember we had a vote on different candidate names, before it was officially COSMOS. So, this was “proto” COSMOS.

How would you describe the “research pipeline” that you worked on while at COSMOS? In other words, what was the specific area in which you researched?

I worked on a variety of projects that primarily involved text data. When I first started, I was doing agent-based models of opinion dynamics and then moved into text-related things. One project I was heavily involved in was on Ukraine and the Ukrainian government. We also had a variety of one-off projects that I was doing as part of my dissertation work, which involved comparing how people talk about different things. That used a lot of Reddit data, which was unique because at the time everybody in the social media field was focused on Twitter, almost to the exclusion of other social media platforms. COSMOS was starting to broaden from Twitter to YouTube. So I was kind of helping to do that, but with Reddit—although, as soon as I graduated, Reddit shut down their public API.

My dissertation was focused on, again, trying to compare how people use language. This was a tricky kind of problem, though. In one instance, we were looking at how people talk about different religious identities. I got to take some of the things I was interested in from my bachelor’s degree in religious studies and apply that to this kind of work. With computational methods, how you frame the comparison is important; it’s really easy to do a comparison that just says, well, people with identity A use these words that are strong signals of having that identity. So if someone is talking about Christianity, they’re going to use words that we associate with Christianity. We can think of them as the technical language or jargon of Christianity. And that’s necessarily different from a discourse that’s about, say, Buddhism. Sure, people use these really distinguishing terms that signal membership in this identity, but let’s figure out how to suppress superficial distinctions between discourses in order to try and draw out deeper insight. How do they actually discuss things, or have a worldview? What is the deeper language game that people play in this discourse versus this other one? These were the things I studied.

Since leaving COSMOS, what roles/positions/jobs have you had? What is your current work?

Once you finish a PhD program, you basically have two options, which is one, find an academic job, such as a professor position, or do postgraduate work. Dr. Agarwal was kind enough to keep me around for another nine months as a postdoc in 2021. Then I started as an assistant professor at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in January of 2022. I’m in my sixth semester now at UCA, wrapping up my third full calendar year there. I teach our department’s artificial intelligence classes, one 3000 level class and a more focused machine learning 4000 level class, which are a mix of undergraduate and graduate students. 

As you can imagine, it’s a double-edged sword, with all of the attention that AI gets at the moment. I’m almost intimidated, but also honored, to be trusted with the AI machine learning courses at UCA.

What positions did COSMOS and your classes at UALR best prepare you for?

So in terms of coursework, there was of course Dr. Agarwal’s class on social computing. Dr. Xu also taught a class on network science, and those had a big, big impact on me. 

But aside from coursework, one thing that was, I think, really, really important was just getting exposed to so many different research papers—that I might not have sought out on my own—through the COSMOS Friday meetings, where everyone presented a paper. Those meetings were such a nice explorative approach to learning new ideas. 

Everyone would pick different kinds of papers, and I would always pick these outlandish or ’out there’ papers. We’d have a really good discussion about them, and it motivated me to read papers and try to dig into papers that other people had presented that I had questions about. There’s a saying: one hour in the library is worth 1,000 on the bench (or in the lab)—that reading, you can just sit there and try to figure everything out on your own. But that’s silly because science is a social enterprise. It’s really important to just see what people are doing, and that breadth of exposure was great. And that’s what I loved about Cosmos. All kinds of topics that fit in that span from the computational to the human, psychological, social, psychological, all those things.

If you had to describe the most momentous event at COSMOS, what would it be?

I once presented at a conference that was the International Conference on Complex Systems. It was in Massachusetts that year. And I got to meet one of my intellectual heroes who gave one of the talks at that. That was great, because I only got to go to that because of COSMOS and the funding that was available to me through that.

Another significant time was at the conference Computational Humanities Research in 2020, the first year that that conference came into existence. I was the lead author on a paper where I felt like I wasn’t just playing it safe, where we were toying with this problem of comparing religious discourses and trying to compare them in a way that didn’t just reflect these superficial distinctions in their jargon, more or less. It’s really easy as a grad student to want to do ‘safe’ science—we take the data, we have the methods, we apply them, we report the results, we send the paper off. But this was one of the first times that I felt enough confidence to say, “Here’s kind of a new idea,”—where people haven’t done this specific thing before, and so wading out into the unknown. It’s a little bit scary doing that, especially as a grad student. But that paper got accepted, and the people who were there at the conference, who were in that session, were excited about it. Dr. Agarwal mentorship through all this was pivotal—the fact that he kind of just let me pursue these ‘weird’ questions that I was interested in, saying “Hey, you know, if you can get it published, then go for it!”

What advice would you have for current Cosmographers?

On the one hand, the safe approach to research that I mentioned, it serves a function in terms of how labs and institutes have to sustain themselves on the currency of publications.

But I would tell everyone that one thing they can do is research that is going to be directly useful to somebody that they don’t know—that someone’s going to read that paper and think, oh, wow, that actually helps me. A lot of times, it’s easy to get stuck doing these papers that don’t really push the envelope. They’re fine. There’s nothing wrong or untrue about them. But there’s a risky kind of paper to do, to push the envelope, that could be hard to get accepted depending on how much it diverges from what most people might expect. But I feel that, especially for PhD students, if you can do something that really has your stamp of originality, then that is something that you will carry with you even if you don’t end up in an academic career or anything like that. And especially because if you do, that’s such an important thing to do at least once. At least give it a try. Trying to do a paper that’s exciting and weird and different, at least once. 

Also, read widely! That too.

In this month’s research spotlight, COSMOS highlights recent research that focuses on collective mobilization, in the form of political protests. Specifically, the studies titled, “A Computational Approach to Analyze Identity Formation: A Case Study of Brazil Insurrection” and “Role of Co-occurring Words in Mobilization in Brazilian Social Movements,” both studied two protest movements surrounding the 2022 Brazilian elections, one anti- and the other pro-government. These studies were published and presented recently at this year’s annual Americas Conference on Information Sciences (AMCIS 2024) in late August, which took place from 15 to 17 August in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Protests represent a coming together of individuals to speak out and to respond to an event, particularly a political one; this phenomenon is known as collective action. There are various theories behind what social elements bring together such individuals to enact collective action, and each of these studies investigated different characteristics of the protests in January 2023 that took place following the Brazilian 2022 election results. Leading up to 2023, supporters of the losing candidate, Bolsonaro, claimed the election had been fraudulently stolen, eventually protesting publicly in January—thus, being anti-government protesters. In response, pro-government supporters of the winning candidate similarly organized to identify rioters and dispel misinformed claims.

“A Computational Approach to Analyze Identity Formation: A Case Study of Brazil Insurrection” examined how online discourse on Twitter and Instagram contributed to collective identity formation leading up to and during the Brazil insurrection. Using Moral Foundations Theory and Resource Mobilization Theory, researchers analyzed hashtags, content similarity, and network structure to track the development of community groups and their cohesion. They found that as the protests approached, network cohesion increased, with topics converging and identity formation intensifying. Resource mobilization patterns showed growing support, reflecting shared motivations and unity against a common adversary.

 “Role of Co-occurring Words in Mobilization in Brazilian Social Movements,” applied Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory to analyze Instagram discourse in three stages: initiation, amplification, and sustainment. Over 600 co-occurring word pairs were manually coded for their conative (action-oriented), referential (informational), and emotive (expressive) language use. Anti-government posts primarily employed conative language, peaking during amplification and correlating with the rapid escalation into the January 8, 2023, riots. Pro-government narratives, however, maintained a consistent use of referential language, focusing on policy details and rational arguments. The results highlight distinct patterns in discourse strategies between opposing groups, indicating how language use and collective identity shape the dynamics of protest mobilization and escalation.

These research studies show two different investigative methods for discovering the subprocesses behind collective action, such as collective identity formation and language use. 

On September 12th, NPR aired a special program on digital misinformation and AI, as part of a series of panels on issues hosted by local Little Rock reporter Daniel Breen. In the panel interview, titled Issues That Matter: Digital Dilemmas: Navigating Truth in a Digital World, Dr. Nitin Agarwal spoke as one of the experts on the subject. The broadcast investigated the key questions behind mis- and disinformation awareness: What are common forms of both, and how do they appear and spread? What causes are behind their existence, and what real-world effects have they caused? And, importantly, what are governments world-wide doing to fight both, especially as technology like AI influences changes them? How do we improve digital literacy and other techniques to identify fake information online?

“They can range from absolute lies to truths that are pieced in such a manner that they can influence your beliefs and behaviors. So they are not outright false or misinformation, but the way information is pieced together, can influence you to believe otherwise,” reported Dr. Agarwal. He cited numerous contexts that misinformation campaigns appear within, saying “When we look at different parts of the world, whether it is the Americas, Europe, the global South or more specifically in the Asia-Pacific or the Indo-Pacific regions, we have seen how minority or marginalized communities like the Uyghurs are disproportionately affected from disinformation campaigns or influence campaigns.”

Especially, false or disinformation narratives can appear where “competitors seek to gain geo-political advantages” such as those in the Indo-Pacific regions “that China is great for the economy, great for partnership, building roads, bridges, infrastructure, etc., while at the same time acting as a loan shark.” He described how in the US misinformation has lead to numerous national issues, such as the exacerbation of COVID-19 from harmful fake or scam remedies for the virus, the mistreatment of marginalized communities, and anti-minority lynchings in the Global South. He also highlighted elections as a key context in which disinformation appears and wrecks havoc, by creating more polarized political discussions and echo chambers. 

AI complicates how misinformation propagates. “It is advancing at a breakneck speed, as we have seen with deep fakes,” Dr. Agarwal says. “So there need to be much more advanced detection methods. We are developing those methods, what I call fighting fire with fire. We are leveraging AI to combat this type of problem.” Dr. Agarwal went on to describe the AI-enhanced techniques COSMOS is developing to combat AI-amplified misinformation, such as using social cyber forensics. 

To discuss fixes for the issue, Dr. Agarwal pointed out legislation in other countries, such as the Prevention of Online Falsehoods and Misinformation Act (POFMA) recently implemented in Singapore. He also emphasized the importance in adopting a “whole of society approach to defeat or combat disinformation,” with a successful example being in Taiwan. “Very recently in Taiwanese elections, we saw that post elections, there was a misinformation campaign, suggesting that the elections or the electoral votes were not counted properly. . . .And then the whole of society got together, including lawmakers, election council, social media influencers, celebrities, in a massive campaign of awareness of how transparent the voting process is. The campaign was not about to say that, no, the other party is wrong, the other side is wrong—just to shed light on the process, the transparency of the process, and let people decide whether it is misinformation and disinformation or whether it is,” he describes. “You won’t believe within less than 24 hours, the whole disinformation campaign was debunked by the citizens and they were out on the streets rejoicing the victory of the election and victory of the party that legitimately won the election.” As he put it, “If you teach a man to fish, they’re set for life, as opposed to, you know, just giving them a fish.”

Listen to the full discussion that describes in detail the research at COSMOS to mitigate the impacts of misinformation.

Internships offer students valuable opportunities that can significantly influence their academic journeys. For the COSMOS research team, these experiences have been particularly beneficial, providing numerous advantages. Internships enable students to tackle challenges from diverse angles, pushing them to rethink assumptions and inspiring innovative thinking. COSMOS welcomes from summer internships Manohar Koya, Imran Mohammed, Remi Oni, Diwash Poudel, Precious Sani, and Shadi Shajari. 

We are excited to announce the recent internships of our cosmographers, who have had the privilege of working with prestigious companies such as W&W AFCO Steel, Acxiom, Amazon, VINCI Education Worldwide, and FedEx, as well as the Arkansas State Department of Commerce.

These internships have infused our cosmographers with fresh ideas, creating a dynamic and collaborative atmosphere that drives innovation. They have also provided opportunities to build professional networks, connect with industry leaders, and establish meaningful relationships. These connections create a vital link between academia and industry, paving the way for future collaborations aimed at enhancing the understanding of real-world challenges, developing a workforce with relevant industry skills, and fostering mutual knowledge exchange.

Through these internships, cosmographers gain essential real-world problem-solving skills that they can apply to our projects upon their return. We are immensely proud of their achievements and are eager to see the remarkable contributions they will continue to make as they advance their academic pursuits, enriched by their experiences. COSMOS welcomes them from their summer work, and read the reports of their work below.

Manohar says, “During my summer internship at FedEx, I had the exciting opportunity to work within the InfoSec organization, specifically with the Risk Data Engineering team. I developed data dashboards and improved the team’s alerting and monitoring systems by building a Python microservice integrated with Teams webhooks for dynamic alerts. A key highlight was presenting this work to Gene Sun, CISO of FedEx and SVP of InfoSec. His insights not only validated the impact of my contributions but also provided a new perspective on the critical importance of information security. This experience significantly enhanced my technical skills and deepened my passion for cybersecurity.”

Imran remarks, “During my internship at the Arkansas State Department of Commerce in the Division of Workforce Services, I had the opportunity to work on various applications, including mainframes, C#, and AWS. I was part of the IT team responsible for managing and developing applications that support unemployed individuals in Arkansas. I gained valuable insights into how the Arkansas state government assists those who register on the website by providing unemployment insurance claims and offering job opportunities tailored to their skillsets. My team owns and manages all the unemployment-related applications, such as Arknet and Ezarc for the State of Arkansas. Overall, it was a great learning experience.”

Remi expresses, “In my summer internship at Amazon AWS Dallas, I worked as a Data Engineer Intern on the Roster Analytics ORCAS team. I developed a robust data quality framework aimed at addressing key challenges in data integrity within our pipeline. The solution was built and implemented using the DQChecker-python-wrapper to conduct data quality checks on both upstream and downstream datasets. This framework not only reduced redundancy but also saved my team more than 20 work hours per month by catching data quality issues early. I became proficient in AWS services like Glue, S3, and QuickSight, and further honed my time management and problem-solving skills. The best part of the internship was participating in virtual game hours and playing table tennis with colleagues after work, which made for a well-rounded and enjoyable experience.”

Diwash says, “During my summer internship for VINCI Education in Dunn Loring, North Virginia, I had the opportunity to work on developing an action model using computer vision, which allowed me to dive deep into vision transformers. This experience not only provided valuable technical skills but also gave me a firsthand look at American working culture. The charming surroundings and my first-ever ride on a metro train added to the overall experience, making it both memorable and enriching.”

Precious reports, “During my summer internship at Acxiom LLC, I served as an Information Security Intern, where I acquired substantial knowledge and expertise in secure SDLC and AI Governance, securing information systems and preventing vulnerabilities. I was introduced to various industry-standard tools such as Burp Suite and Snyk, which are instrumental in enhancing the security of web applications. Additionally, I had the privilege of interacting with leadership and gaining valuable insights from their experiences. The skills I acquired during this internship have equipped me to write more secure code and effectively safeguard information assets.”

Shadi reflects, “During my internship at W&W AFCO Steel company, significant efforts were made to refine and enhance barcode detection and processing systems using deep learning techniques. Super-resolution models were trained and debugged, with optimizations applied to improve the accuracy and speed of barcode detection, even under challenging conditions such as rapid movement or poor image quality. Deep learning solutions like OpenCV and PyTorch were integrated to address complex detection issues, and barcode repair mechanisms were implemented to enhance the reliability of the models.”

Dr. Agarwal commented, “These internships represent significant milestones in the careers of our cosmographers. The knowledge and insights they gained during their recent experiences in the data science industry often help ongoing research at COSMOS. We remain committed to encouraging our researchers to engage with the industry beyond the university, and their internships are a testament to their growing expertise and talent.”